DarrenBarefoot.com

It is an interesting idea I have to say, but there are scary privacy issues. Granted no one forces people to put their resumes up there, but a number of scenarios come to mind that would keep people from doing so:

* Disclosure issues. To get the best advice on updating and tayloring your resume to your employer’s requirements and likes, you most likely have to mention to your commenters what position and at which company you are applying for. Many companies would ask you to not publicly reveal that information (we all heard the rumors on google wanting to create a new browsers based on the people they were interviewing). Even if the company interviewing you doesn’t care, you would often want to keep your application to the new position quiet from your co-workers and current employer at least until you know for sure.

* Privacy issues: One of the two example resumes there has address and phone number. Need I say more?

* Identity Fraud. There is a lot of information about someone on their resume, tons more than your typical trash-can-searching identity theif finds from roaming through garbage. Admittedly, most identity fraud these days is financially motivated (and the information in a resume never points to financial information). But the more heinous identity thefts have always been through providing enough bits and pieces of someone’s past for others to convince people of one’s identity. And boy are resumes full of historical information: your past jobs, the schools you attended, conferences, etc. Or maybe I’m just paranoid :-)

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Appologies for being too quick to comment without having read your privacy statement Jeremy.

There are lots of creative ways to provide enough information to the readers and commenters of one’s resume to get productive feedback without getting in trouble. You can explain your background, education and activities without naming any names, and so on. Similarly, you can describe the employer and position without mentioning enough detail to make the uniquely identifiable.

I think what you are recommending to people is to not cut and paste their resume to your website as a whole, but rather use it to get feedback on what they would put in their resume.

As for identity theft, I think it’s a problem that is overlooked, both in its more traditional forms and certainly in this (relatively) new form. It might be worth a mention on your privacy page.

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